The Kabbalists have a different view of the language which addresses the paradox expressed by Gershom Sholem. His concerns include the impossibility and inability of the language to deliver something such as connection between the person and the God, or the Divine. The tradition of Kabbalist ports to write about timeless matters that everyone can relate to has existed from the early ages. This essay will discuss the view of language in Kabbalistic poetry and its connection to the Divine.
Kabbalistic poets view the language not as a mere tool of communication, but as an embrace of simple and complex notions that existed in Kabbalist culture from Middle Ages to the modern day. Moreover, myths similarly have traveled from mouth to mouth, using oral expressions along with images for centuries. One of the matters raised in Kabbalistic poetry is the connection between human and spirits, which allows them to use the language as a bridge to the Divine.
Kabbalistic poets also incorporated ideas from the Old Testament and made the words sound as part of the Divine, and not a separation from it. Scholem himself considered that some Kabbalistic poems are written in a way that “fills the imagination of the devotee with splendid concepts” (Cole, p. 202). The concepts of an Old Testament that persist in Kabbalistic poetry can be seen in Bar-Ilan’s hymn which “involves overcoming both fear of the Angel of Anger and awe before the heavenly powers” (Cole, p. 209). The language that is used in hymns is transcendental and brings the ultimate joy, making the hymn not a simple collection of words but a gate into the Divine. This means that Kabbalistic poems and hymns do not only contain Biblical ideas but also serve as a bridge to the sacred energies.
To conclude, the paradox might have appeared because mythical expressions tend to be excluded from the linguistic language. However, myths contain linguistic language being transferred through oral expressions within ages, and thus the paradox might in some cases not exist. Moreover, different critics have supported the idea that Kabbalistic poetry enables the reader to achieve the contact with eternal energies and thus the Kabbalistic poetry takes a special place in global art.
Work Cited
Cole, P. (2017). Poetry of kabbalah: Mystical verse from the Jewish tradition. Yale University Press.